Dental Implants
Dental implants can be employed to reconstruct an occlusion. However, the financial costs of implant surgery are considerable. Implant dentistry requires a surgeon to insert the implant into the bone and a restorative dentist to fabricate and attach the crown, the tooth part. The cost of the surgical insertion of a single implant varies; if preinsertion bone grafting is required, that adds to the cost. After the implant has integrated to the bone, the dentist attaches a crown, which is another additional cost. Sometimes the dental treatment plan will have the implants support substructure of an appliance rather than individual teeth. If multiple individual implants are the plan, the restorative dentist will determine how many implants are required. The final cost is determined by the number of implants required multiplied by the cost per tooth. If an implant-borne substructure is the plan, the cost will vary depending on the design, but still be in the thousands of dollars for the substructure plus the costs of the supporting implants. After the implants are integrated, they then must be restored at additional expense.
Preserving teeth will affect the number of implants required to achieve and adequate occlusion and thus the cost of the dental rehabilitation – the more teeth retained, the fewer implants needed. A treatment plan dedicated to maintaining teeth would also spread the financial burden over time. If teeth were lost at future dates, implants could be employed in smaller numbers as they were required. The emotional benefits of preserving teeth, regardless of the choice of a treatment plan, compared to having no teeth at all, cannot be given a dollar value – the distress can only be imagined.